Why should farmer deaths cause a ripple unless the state rushes in to wipe their tears?
Ask any Congress worker who is Kalawati Bandurkar. The chances are that he will say she is the poor farm widow from Yavatmal district of Vidarbha whose husband Parshuram had committed suicide on December 23, 2005 because of the agrarian crisis. He will remember this woman because the Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi had mentioned her name in the Lok Sabha in 2008 after paying a visit to her house in Yavatmal to console her.
But ask the same Congressman who is Savita Khamamkar or Sanjay Kalaskar, the chances are that he may draw a blank. Savita is Kalawati’s second daughter who committed suicide in 2011 by dousing herself with kerosene and Sanjay Kalaskar is the husband of her sixth daughter Papita who committed suicide in 2010 because he could not repay the loans which he had taken from the banks for farming and purchasing an autorickshaw. Savita took this extreme step when she realised that her agricultural land did not yeild anything and that her husband Diwakar faced the prospect of defaulting on a loan. Sanjay Kalaskar ended his life for the same reason – debt.
Excuse the politicians if they only remember the name of Kalawati Bandurkar. Why would death of farmers in Vidarbha make news unless the State rushes in to wipe their tears? In fact, in Vidarbha death of farmer is not news. It is just plain statistics. Suicides among farmers like these in Vidarbha are not isolated cases but have been preceded by many such incidences in the past and are happening in the present.
According to Kalawati, Savita was suffering from stomach ulcer and was not keeping well. Her husband borrowed money from banks and other people but was unable to repay the loan because of the ongoing agrarian crisis. The anxiety of the fallout of a loan default and the fear of the consequence prompted her to end her life.
“I always tried to help my daughters and sons-in-law through my limited resources. But it seems no one in the region is able to cope up with the agrarian crisis which has assumed gigantic proportions,” she adds.
The former Sarpanch of Seoni village in Yavatmal district and a farmer leader of the area Mohan Jadhav claims that on an average three farmers commit suicide every 24 hours in Vidarbha because of agrarian crisis. He blames the government for its apathy. “If the government wants to prevent farmer suicides, the least it could do is to come out with a food security programme for all the distressed farmers of Vidarbha and waive all the crop loans to them ensuring that the defaulters get fresh loans next season.” It might be noted here that the former President of the BJP Nitin Gadkari belongs to the Vidarbha region and was forced to step down because of allegations of financial impropriety. In his defence, Gadkari has maintained that it was his mission to transform the lives of farmers in Vidarbha and stop the step motherly treatment being meted out to them by politicians from other regions of the state. Of course, while politicians trade allegations, the farmers continue their march towards penury and starvation.
Kishore Tiwari of Vidarbha Janandolan Samiti, which has been documenting farmers suicides in the region since 2001, squarely blames the government for the problems of farmers. He says government has failed to bail out the crisis-ridden farmers in Vidarbha region. “The relief packages hardly had any effect among the farmers as susbtantial amount of funds were siphoned off by the ruling politicians,” he alleges. According to Tiwari around 12,000 farmers have killed themselves in Maharashtra since 2001, a majority of them from Vidarbha and Marathwada. The most suicide-prone districts of Vidarbha are Amravati, Yavatmal, Buldhana, Akola, Washim and Wardha.
Noted agro-economist Dr. Srinivas Khadewale says that crop failure and loan burden from banks and private money lenders are two important factors that are responsible for pushing the farmers to the edge. “In addition to this the cotton growers in the region did not get a good support price for their raw cotton this year and the production was also meagre because of scanty rainfall, " he says.
According to him, the government should provide food security and employment to the farmers under the national rural employment scheme immediately to prevent suicides. The former Shetkari Sangathana President Vijay Jawandhia points out that the farmers are not getting remunerative prices for their agriculture produce while the agro-input costs have shot up in the recent past. The guarantee price of raw cotton was fixed at Rs 3,850 per quintal while the cost of production was around Rs 4,200. “How can the farmers cope up with such a situation with such meagre remunerative price?” he queries. He says “besides maximum agricultural land is non-irrigated. Hardly 11 percent areas in the region are irrigated and crop failure because of scanty rainfall is very high in the area.”
The tragedy for Maharashtra is that the agrarian crisis has now spread beyond Vidarbha to all parts of the state. Many analysts reckon that the state is facing its worst drought in more than 40 years. What is astonishing is how the lack of rains has exposed the hollow claims of Maharashtra politicians and bureaucrats that the state has invested heavily in irrigation. Over the last decade and a half, it is estimated that more than Rs 80,000 crore has been allocated to shore up irrigation facilities in the state. But the sordid fact is that most of that money seems to have been siphoned away by vested interests. You might recall that there was a huge uproar a while back over the so-called irrigation scam. The nephew of Sharad Pawar and the Deputy Chief Minister of the state Ajit Pawar, who has been handling the irrigation ministry for more than a decade, was compelled to resign from the cabinet over allegations of corruption. But then the government presented a white paper that absolved all politicians of any wrong doing and the junior Pawar is back in the cabinet. Many mainstream media outlets including news channels, newspapers and magazines have highlighted the scam and the acute distress being faced by farmers in Maharashtra. Nothing much has happened. The Marathwada region, dominated by politicians like Sharad Pawar, is as badly hit as Vidarbha.
Ask any Congress worker who is Kalawati Bandurkar. The chances are that he will say she is the poor farm widow from Yavatmal district of Vidarbha whose husband Parshuram had committed suicide on December 23, 2005 because of the agrarian crisis. He will remember this woman because the Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi had mentioned her name in the Lok Sabha in 2008 after paying a visit to her house in Yavatmal to console her.
But ask the same Congressman who is Savita Khamamkar or Sanjay Kalaskar, the chances are that he may draw a blank. Savita is Kalawati’s second daughter who committed suicide in 2011 by dousing herself with kerosene and Sanjay Kalaskar is the husband of her sixth daughter Papita who committed suicide in 2010 because he could not repay the loans which he had taken from the banks for farming and purchasing an autorickshaw. Savita took this extreme step when she realised that her agricultural land did not yeild anything and that her husband Diwakar faced the prospect of defaulting on a loan. Sanjay Kalaskar ended his life for the same reason – debt.
Excuse the politicians if they only remember the name of Kalawati Bandurkar. Why would death of farmers in Vidarbha make news unless the State rushes in to wipe their tears? In fact, in Vidarbha death of farmer is not news. It is just plain statistics. Suicides among farmers like these in Vidarbha are not isolated cases but have been preceded by many such incidences in the past and are happening in the present.
According to Kalawati, Savita was suffering from stomach ulcer and was not keeping well. Her husband borrowed money from banks and other people but was unable to repay the loan because of the ongoing agrarian crisis. The anxiety of the fallout of a loan default and the fear of the consequence prompted her to end her life.
“I always tried to help my daughters and sons-in-law through my limited resources. But it seems no one in the region is able to cope up with the agrarian crisis which has assumed gigantic proportions,” she adds.
The former Sarpanch of Seoni village in Yavatmal district and a farmer leader of the area Mohan Jadhav claims that on an average three farmers commit suicide every 24 hours in Vidarbha because of agrarian crisis. He blames the government for its apathy. “If the government wants to prevent farmer suicides, the least it could do is to come out with a food security programme for all the distressed farmers of Vidarbha and waive all the crop loans to them ensuring that the defaulters get fresh loans next season.” It might be noted here that the former President of the BJP Nitin Gadkari belongs to the Vidarbha region and was forced to step down because of allegations of financial impropriety. In his defence, Gadkari has maintained that it was his mission to transform the lives of farmers in Vidarbha and stop the step motherly treatment being meted out to them by politicians from other regions of the state. Of course, while politicians trade allegations, the farmers continue their march towards penury and starvation.
Kishore Tiwari of Vidarbha Janandolan Samiti, which has been documenting farmers suicides in the region since 2001, squarely blames the government for the problems of farmers. He says government has failed to bail out the crisis-ridden farmers in Vidarbha region. “The relief packages hardly had any effect among the farmers as susbtantial amount of funds were siphoned off by the ruling politicians,” he alleges. According to Tiwari around 12,000 farmers have killed themselves in Maharashtra since 2001, a majority of them from Vidarbha and Marathwada. The most suicide-prone districts of Vidarbha are Amravati, Yavatmal, Buldhana, Akola, Washim and Wardha.
Noted agro-economist Dr. Srinivas Khadewale says that crop failure and loan burden from banks and private money lenders are two important factors that are responsible for pushing the farmers to the edge. “In addition to this the cotton growers in the region did not get a good support price for their raw cotton this year and the production was also meagre because of scanty rainfall, " he says.
According to him, the government should provide food security and employment to the farmers under the national rural employment scheme immediately to prevent suicides. The former Shetkari Sangathana President Vijay Jawandhia points out that the farmers are not getting remunerative prices for their agriculture produce while the agro-input costs have shot up in the recent past. The guarantee price of raw cotton was fixed at Rs 3,850 per quintal while the cost of production was around Rs 4,200. “How can the farmers cope up with such a situation with such meagre remunerative price?” he queries. He says “besides maximum agricultural land is non-irrigated. Hardly 11 percent areas in the region are irrigated and crop failure because of scanty rainfall is very high in the area.”
The tragedy for Maharashtra is that the agrarian crisis has now spread beyond Vidarbha to all parts of the state. Many analysts reckon that the state is facing its worst drought in more than 40 years. What is astonishing is how the lack of rains has exposed the hollow claims of Maharashtra politicians and bureaucrats that the state has invested heavily in irrigation. Over the last decade and a half, it is estimated that more than Rs 80,000 crore has been allocated to shore up irrigation facilities in the state. But the sordid fact is that most of that money seems to have been siphoned away by vested interests. You might recall that there was a huge uproar a while back over the so-called irrigation scam. The nephew of Sharad Pawar and the Deputy Chief Minister of the state Ajit Pawar, who has been handling the irrigation ministry for more than a decade, was compelled to resign from the cabinet over allegations of corruption. But then the government presented a white paper that absolved all politicians of any wrong doing and the junior Pawar is back in the cabinet. Many mainstream media outlets including news channels, newspapers and magazines have highlighted the scam and the acute distress being faced by farmers in Maharashtra. Nothing much has happened. The Marathwada region, dominated by politicians like Sharad Pawar, is as badly hit as Vidarbha.
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